The return of the Ballater Highland Games was heralded by a scorchio day in Upper Deeside, lots of very red Scots (other nationalities were also quite well sunburnt) folk wandering around the games park, 72 of them signed up for the hill race, I have the feeling quite a few wished they hadn't as they stumbled onto the lower part of the climb up Craig Coillich.

Perennial record chaser James Espie (Deeside) led the pack out onto the road, closely followed by a few of the Royal Guard up looking after the Queen on her highland holiday. Not sure that was the wisest decision they have made to chase James, as you can see from the results!

James duly returned to the games park and recorded a good winning time of just over 18 minutes, he was about 45 seconds ahead of Jamie Stevenson from Ochils who was closely followed by a pair of Sams (Fisher and Milton). Brian Marshall (Haddington) had a very commendable run to place 6th and first MV50, next was Hayden Lorimer (HBT) in 8th place followed in 18th by Ian Patterson. 

Neil Walker from Altrincham taking a hotly contested MV40 with the top three separated by only 10 seconds, with Jamie Ross from Deeside and Peter Torrance rounding out the top three. Adrian Davis (Lomond) managed to pip the redoubtable Alan Smith (Deeside) for the MV60 honours with Davy Duncan (Ochils) celebrating third place in his usual inimitable style.

The ladies' race was a clean sweep for the very cheery triumvirate from Edinburgh Uni HH, Katie Lowery winning with an impressive time of 21:43, she would go on to be first female in the mile race about an hour later. Thereafter followed Hannah Morrison who outsprinted her teammate Constance Nankivell for second.  Rachel Little (ITRC) took a very clear win in the FV40 category when finishing fourth, Suzanne Mantoni had a great tussle with Mhairi Beattie for the second place, Wachter Vollmer from Germany was an extremely pleased German lady to win the FV50 section. Jacqueline Galloway from Anster Haddies performed well to win the FV60's.

It was really nice to see folks once again competing at the highland games, long may if continue.

Andy Bain

Full results on the SHR Results tab.